Henry Aubin: New anti-corruption squad hardly looks promising

Henry Aubin

MONTREAL — There’s nothing out of date about Jean Fortier’s account of Montreal corruption from 1998 to 2001, when he was city hall’s No. 2 elected official. His experiences, described in articles this week by The Gazette’s Linda Gyulai, confirm what has so far only been suspected — that corruption extends far beyond the construction industry.

He shows that in his day the cancer had spread to the city’s permits, real-estate transactions, zoning changes and such humdrum (but lucrative) contracts as those for the purchase of garbage and recycling bins. So far, these sectors have escaped hard scrutiny: Investigators’ narrow focus is on construction.

Should corruption and collusion in these sectors be probed? Of course. The rotten culture that Fortier describes can only have grown as the city’s size and budget have also grown. The question is: What is the best mode of attack?

That’s not clear.

Opération Marteau, the police investigative unit within the provincial government’s overall UPAC anti-corruption offensive, can investigate individual cases of corruption and collusion, and make arrests here and there. But, under its mandate, it can’t do what’s most needed, which is to shed light on entire systems of corruption, as the Charbonneau inquiry is now doing.

So, can the Charbonneau inquiry itself start exposing the sort of matters that Fortier reports? No. That’s because the inquiry, too, has a restrictive mandate: It can only look into the construction industry.

Well, then, could the new 20-member unit of Montreal police that Mayor Michael Applebaum announced on Jan. 11 probe these different sectors? In theory, perhaps. The unit, known by its acronym EPIM, has a mandate to “protect the administrative integrity of the city of Montreal, especially in the tendering of contracts.” There’s no restrictions on what kinds of contracts. Fine.

Yet EPIM hardly looks promising:

Montreal police have scant background in this specialized field of contracts. It could take a long time to acquire the expertise to look over officials’ shoulders in a knowledgeable manner.

The police department has a history of total unconcern regarding municipal corruption. It let the cancer thrive for many years. (Journalists. not cops, sounded the alarm.) It’s not easy for an institution to overcome a culture of laisser-aller.

Corruption in city hall can be political dynamite, and a body devoted to exposing it must be politically neutral. Such impartiality cannot always be assumed of Montreal’s police brass. Note that in 2009, only weeks before the city election, the chief at the time, Yvan Delorme, all but endorsed the ruling Union Montreal party. Elected city officials in effect hire police chiefs (and can reappoint them) and set department budgets. An investigative unit less dependent on city hall would be preferable.

Applebaum informed Police Chief Marc Parent of his aim to create the squad just four days before the announcement. The mayor also did not inform the executive committee of the plan until the morning of the announcement. Nor did he did he consult with or notify the Quebec government in advance.

EPIM, in short, is hardly a well-thought-out attack on corruption. The optics are that the mayor rushed it to provide PR cover before being interviewed by the Charbonneau Commission only hours after the announcement.

Now, here’s a further problem. City hall already has several bodies devoted to uprooting improper municipal transactions. The best known is the auditor-general’s office, which has more than 30 employees. In response to the corruption crisis, the comptroller-general’s office was created in 2010 to ensure probity in city business; it has 24 full-time equivalent positions and maintains the whistleblower hotline. At about the same time, a city council committee was set up to examine contracts.

How will EPIM work with these civilian bodies? Will it share information with Marteau? Will it — or any other body — adequately explore the troubled sectors outside the construction industry?

More investigative units do not necessarily mean more effective work. Note, for example, that the new comptroller’s office and the auditors’ office have a strained relationship, the former having seized the whistleblower hotline from the latter and in so doing diminishing city employees’ confidence in it and their use of it.

The on-the-fly creation of EPIM is exactly what a war on corruption does not need. What city authorities do need to do is stand back, take stock of existing bodies, consult with the provincial government and plan a coherent war on the sort of problems that Fortier identifies. Improvisation only ensures more trouble.

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